Using high-intensity focused ultrasound to treat solid tumors

“I think high-intensity focused ultrasound is a really exciting technology that will allow for a different paradigm of how we think about treating solid tumors, both in a local and in a systemic way,” says AeRang Kim, M.D., oncologist at Children’s National Hospital. Dr. Kim explains high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) and how she and her team have used this technology to treat pediatric solid tumors.

HIFU is energy that can be focused on any region of the body. It allows doctors to provide different types of energy in varying amounts, and it’s typically coupled with magnetic resonance imaging, which allows for precise, focused energy to specific areas with accuracy and temperature guidance.

Children’s National was one of the first pediatric centers to open a clinical trial for the treatment of pediatric solid tumors. Since then, we’ve opened several other clinical trials and combined them with targeted chemotherapy for the ablation of benign tumors and malignant solid tumors. We are one of the few institutions that have this study open and we are leading the clinical trials and coordinating them with other institutions across the country.